In art: The decade often labeled as complacent, compliant and conservative, gave birth to form-breaking, non-objective art and abstract expressionism from artists like Pollack, Rauschenberg, Johns, de Kooning, Rothko and Kandinsky - all of which culminated in the opening of New York's groundbreaking Guggenheim museum in 1959.

Ben Grasso and Thomas Spoerndle are two with whom I feel some kinship; Spoerndle's work is completely non-objective, and Grasso's paintings are more overtly metaphorical than mine, so they represent opposite ends of the spectrum in which I place myself.

But the Obama administration denounced WikiLeaks as "irresponsible" and non-objective -- and argued that the president had announced "a new strategy" for Afghanistan last December "precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years."